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Chapter 3. Configuring virt-who

You can use the Satellite web UI or the Hammer CLI tool to configure a virt-who instance. Both methods provide input validation.

For more details on configuring a virt-who instance, see one of the following:

3.1. Creating virt-who Configuration using the Web UI

Complete this procedure to create a virt-who configuration, using the Satellite web UI.

Create virt-who Configuration using the web UI

To create a virt-who configuration using the Satellite web UI:

  1. Navigate to Infrastructure → Virt-who configurations
  2. Click Create Config.

  3. Complete the General Information, Schedule, and Connection fields and click Submit. Fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory.

    Note
    • Click on the information icon beside the name of each field to view a brief description.
    • Enter the hypervisor password in plain text and it will be encrypted.

3.2. Creating virt-who Configuration using Hammer

Complete this procedure to create a virt-who configuration using the Hammer CLI tool.

Procedure

To create a virt-who configuration, enter the following command on Satellite Server: 

# hammer virt-who-config create \
  --name rhevm.example.com \ 1
  --organization "Example Company" \ 2
  --interval interval \ 3
  --filtering-mode filtering-mode \ 4
  --hypervisor-id hypervisor-id \ 5
  --hypervisor-type hypervisor-type \ 6
  --hypervisor-server rhevm.example.com \ 7
  --hypervisor-username virt-who-user \ 8
  --hypervisor-password virt-who-password \ 9
  --satellite-url satellite.example.com 10
1
Name for this configuration.
2
Organization name.
3
Interval at which virt-who queries hypervisors for changes, measured in minutes. The value must be one of 60, 120, 240, 480, 720.
Note

The interval parameter is a global parameter for each instance of virt-who, stored in file /etc/sysconfig/virt-who. The value is overwritten each time a virt-who configuration is deployed.

4
Hypervisor filtering mode. Possible values: none, whitelist, blacklist. Default: none. For more information, see Section 2.1.5, “Filtering the Scope of virt-who Access”.
5
Specifies how the hypervisor will be identified. Possible values: hostname, uuid, hwuuid. Recommended: hostname.
6
Hypervisor type. Possible value(s): VMware vSphere or VMware vCenter: esx, Red Hat Virtualization hypervisor: rhevm, Microsoft Hyper-V: hyperv, Red Hat OpenStack Platform: libvirt.
7
Fully qualified host name or IP address of the hypervisor.
8
User name by which virt-who is to connect to the hypervisor.
9
Password of the user name specified by hypervisor-username. The password will be encrypted by hammer.
10
Fully qualified domain name of Satellite Server.

If the creation is successful, the command returns the following message: 

Virt Who configuration [rhevm.example.com] created

3.3. Removing an Existing virt-who Configuration

To remove an existing virt-who configuration, you must first remove the configuration entry in the Satellite web UI and then remove the configuration file from the file system of the host that virt-who is configured on.

Procedure

To remove an existing virt-who configuration, complete the following steps:

  1. In the Satellite web UI, navigate to Infrastructure > Virt-who configurations.
  2. From the drop-down list to the right of the configuration that you want to remove, select Delete.

  3. On the host that you want to remove the virt-who configuration from, remove the configuration file: 

    # rm /etc/virt-who.d/Configuration_File.conf

3.4. Deploying virt-who Configuration

Complete this procedure to deploy a virt-who configuration. The virt-who service is started when a virt-who configuration is deployed.

Deploy virt-who Configuration

To deploy a virt-who configuration:

  1. Log in to the Satellite web UI.
  2. Navigate to Infrastructure → Virt-who configurations.
  3. Click the name of the virt-who configuration.

  4. If virt-who instance is being installed on the Satellite Server:

    1. Click Copy to clipboard in Hammer command:.

    2. Open a terminal emulator and connect via SSH to the virt-who host as user root. 

      # ssh root@virtwho_host.example.com
    3. Paste the Hammer command into the terminal emulator.

  5. If virt-who is not being installed on the Satellite Server:

    1. Click Download the script in Configuration script:.
    2. Open a terminal emulator.
    3. Navigate to the directory to which the deploy script was downloaded.

    4. Copy the deploy script to the virt-who host. 

      # scp deploy_script root@_virt_who_host:

    5. Make the the deploy script executable and run it. 

      # chmod +x deploy_script
# deploy_script
      ...
== Finished ==
Finished successfully

    6. Delete the script. 

      # rm deploy_script

3.5. Modifying a virt-who Configuration

It is sometimes necessary to modify a deployed virt-who configuration. For example, when the password of the user with which virt-who connects to a hypervisor is changed, the virt-who configuration must be updated and deployed again.

An existing virt-who configuration can be modified using either the Satellite web UI or with hammer.

Modify a virt-who Configuration

  1. Navigate to Infrastructure → Virt-who configurations
  2. Find the virt-who configuration you want to modify, and click Edit on the matching row.
  3. Edit the fields to be modified.
  4. Click Submit
  5. Deploy the modified virt-who configuration. For more information see Section 3.4, “Deploying virt-who Configuration”.

3.5.1. Restarting the virt-who Service

If one or more of the virt-who configuration files is changed, or the environment in the Satellite configuration changes, the virt-who service must be restarted so the changes can take effect. For example, virt-who must be restarted after changing the virt-who account’s password or moving a hypervisor to a new organization.

On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7: 

# systemctl restart virt-who.service

On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6: 

# service virt-who restart